1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the delivery of purchased products. More specifically, it relates to the delivery of products purchased at stores, through mail order, and through online shopping.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years it has become customary for products to be sold not just at stores, but through mail order and through online shopping over the Internet. With this growth in mail order and online shopping, there has been a corresponding increase in the delivery of products by delivery businesses to the purchasers and to parties who receive those products as gifts (hereinafter referred to collectively as “delivery recipient”).
However, with such changes in society as more and more households comprising only the nuclear family, husband and wife both holding jobs, and more people living by themselves as they wait longer to get married, there has been an increasing number of instances where delivery cannot be made because the intended recipient is not at home. When the recipient is not at home, the delivery business has to attempt another delivery at a later time; the delivery recipient, seeing the notice that delivery was attempted, must request the delivery business to make another delivery, and must wait at home for that delivery. This imposes a burden both on the delivery business and the delivery recipient, and is a factor in rising delivery costs. For this reason, services have been proposed such that the party requesting delivery can specify delivery date and time, to make certain that delivery will be made when he or she is at home.
In addition, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 10-162065 describes art wherein a home delivery business refers to recipient schedule information when determining the time and date for scheduling a delivery. Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 10-269447 describes art relating to home delivery of a purchased product. By using this technology, a purchaser can select at time of purchase of product his or her desired delivery service from among a plurality of possible delivery services.
Furthermore, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 5-165847 describes art for building a not-at-home database and making it possible to predict when a delivery recipient will be at home based on this database. This not-at-home database is built when the delivery recipient/user comes home, finds that a delivery has been attempted, sees the attempted delivery notice that the delivery business left, calls the delivery business, and informs the delivery business of his or her desired date and time of delivery.
While the above-described background technology is effective to a certain degree, in that it increases the probability that the delivery will be made when the intended recipient is at home, it leaves the following problems unsolved.
First, when a single user has purchased products from a plurality of vendors, each vendor may use a different delivery business, and even if they do use the same delivery business the deliveries will still be made at different times. Thus, there are delivery charges for each product, meaning an increase in delivery costs. And, for example, because a plurality of delivery businesses will come to make delivery, a user will have to respond to each delivery, which is bothersome.
Second, even if a delivery date and time were specified when requesting delivery, there are times when a user will want to change that delivery date and time because, for example, of a change in plans. In such cases, even if the user tries to request a change over the phone, there may be times when he or she is unable to get through to the delivery business because, for example, the offices aren't open, or it is difficult to make the change, or the getting the change done requires much time and effort. For example, if a user plans to have a plurality of products delivered all on the same day off, he or she must get in touch with a plurality of delivery businesses. And when sending a gift to another person, asking that person beforehand when a good time for delivery is and then specifying a delivery date and time not only is bothersome, it also diminishes the pleasure of both giving and receiving the gift.
Third, if a user lives with someone else, he or she can have that other person receive that delivery in his or her place, but it is bothersome to have to ask fellow family members their plans each time one schedules a delivery. In the end this can lead to a situation where individual family members schedule deliveries on their own, and the overall trouble involved in being present to receive delivery increases.
Fourth, there are cases where in spite of the fact that a user paid for a product at the time that he or she ordered, because a vendor is out of stock for that item or is waiting for a shipment of that item, it takes a considerable time for that product to reach the user who made the order. The lag between the time of order and the time of receipt is a cause of frustration to the user who made the order.